In drilling systems, such as those used in the oilfield industry, a drill pipe is deployed as part of a drill string into a wellbore, which allows a drill bit at a lower end of the drill string to advance in the wellbore. Fatigue life of the drill pipe may be tracked, as it may be advantageous to recognize when a drill pipe is nearing the end of its safe and useful life.
Generally, this life cycle is roughly tracked for the pipes in the aggregate as part of the drill string. The use of the drill pipe as part of the drill string may be recorded, and the drill pipe may be used one or several times, e.g., depending on hole depth, time spent drilling, drilling parameters (e.g., weight-on-bit, dog-leg severity, etc.).
To more precisely track fatigue life for individual pipes, tags have recently been proposed to be placed on or embedded within pipes. The general concept is that ruggedized radiofrequency identification (RFID) tags are placed on or embedded within the drill pipe. The tags are read as the drill pipe is deployed into the wellbore, and the tags stay with the drill pipe during its trip in and out of the wellbore. However, the pipe material, which is typically a ferrous metal, may interfere with the signal of the RFID tags, making them difficult to read. Further, the RFID tags frequently fail in the harsh conditions in the wellbore, which may result in frequent replacement or reversion to the rough approximation of fatigue life explained above.